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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

And then there’s a show-stopping, simply colossal “No Hidden Path”, nigh on 20 minutes of it, Neil’s solos sounding like ruptures in the earth’s crust, fissures appearing everywhere, tectonic plates shifting and crashing beneath him. The stage now and the people on it are drenched in a burning golden light, that mixed with the red back-spots bathes the band in the burnished glow of an atomic sunrise or a nuclear sunset, I’m not sure which. As the song reaches towards an awesome climax, Neil stands facing the massive klieg light to the left of the stage, soloing into it, head thrown back, then lowered into it, as if he may at any moment be consumed by it, beamed up, the next stop presumably being the Phoenix Asteroid.

I have a feeling of being witness to some sun-cult ritual, a worship of light as the source of eternal renewal. It’s a spooky fucking couple of minutes, this bit of the show, and I am at a loss to even begin to explain how he wrings from his guitar the sound he makes in the song’s final, dying moments, which provokes much awestruck head shaking and how-the-fuck-does-he-do-that looks at anyone who catches my eye.